Assessing value top of mind at ISPOR 2019

As we move toward a value-driven health care system, the focus should be on outcomes that matter most to patients, such as how medicines make patients feel, whether they can return to work or how their quality of life has improved. Advancing research and methods related to value assessment is an important step toward that goal. At ISPOR 2019, a conference about health economics and outcomes research and its use in health care decisions, thought leaders discussed how to better measure value in health care.

As part of The Value Collaborative, we hosted a reception in conjunction with the Office of Health Economics titled, “Moving the Needle on Value.” The reception featured brief remarks from individuals at the leading edge of this research, including:

Innovation and Value Initiative’s Jenn Bright, who talked about whether value assessments currently capture what matters most to patients and society

Harvard Medical School’s Anupam Jena, who discussed the reasons for and implications of ignoring value in other areas of health care beyond medical technology

Former ISPOR president and the Office of Health Economics’ Adrian Towse, who highlighted how we can increase information on value for the costliest aspects of the health care system

Over the course of the conference, several other groups who recently received funding from the PhRMA Foundation Value Assessment Initiative discussed how we can better assess value. These groups include:

The Center for Enhanced Value Assessment (CEVA): Headquartered within the Center for the Evaluation of Value and Risk in Health (CEVR) at Tufts Medical Center, this organization aims to explore the incorporation of non-traditional elements of value into cost-effective analyses.

Patient-Driven Values in Healthcare Evaluation (PAVE): A unique collaboration between the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, the National Health Council, patient community leaders, and payer and industry leaders, this organization is dedicated to developing and advancing new methods to incorporate the patient perspective into value assessment and value-based decision-making.

Pharmaceutical Value (pValue): Headquartered within the University of Colorado’s Anschutz Medical Campus, this initiative aims to apply and test novel multi-criteria decision-making methods for value assessment that encourage stakeholder engagement and build in non-traditional elements of value to a decision tool where cost-effectiveness analysis, by definition, has fallen short.

Research Consortium for Health Care Value Assessment (Value Consortium): This partnership between Altarum and VBID Health aims to move the framework for value-based decision making from how much we spend to how well it is spent by identifying high- and low-value clinical services, tracking the use of such services and helping to ensure that consumer and patient preferences are incorporated into the health care decision-making process.

Samantha Dougherty Samantha Dougherty is a senior director of policy and research at PhRMA. Her primary role is to develop and manage a broad portfolio of research projects related to the use and value of medicines. She has authored and been involved in numerous academic and non-academic projects that have been published in peer-reviewed journals or presented at scientific conferences. Samantha also serves as a lead subject matter expert on cost savings from use of medicines, evidence related to adherence, productivity and achievement of better outcomes. She received a B.S. in Economics from the University of Maryland College Park and a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Health Services Research from the University of Maryland Baltimore.